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Journal de Physique: A Historical Reminiscence
The European Physical Journal
A: Hadrons and Nuclei
B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems
C: Particles and Fields
D: Atomic, Molecular, Optical
and Plasma Physics
E: Soft Matter and Biological Physics
AP: Applied Physics
ST: Special Topics
H: Historical Perspectives
on Contemporary Physics
EPJ – Web of Conferences
The title
“The European Physical Journal”
is a joint property of
EDP Sciences
Società Italiana di Fisica
and Springer
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The history of Journal de Physique goes back to 1872 when it was founded by
Jean-Charles d’Almeida under the name Journal de Physique Pure et Appliquée.
In 1911 the fifth issue of Journal de Physique Théorique et Appliquée appeared
stating published by the French Physical Society. Furthermore, the scientists who
had founded and edited the Journal de Physique since 1920 offered full
ownership and control of the Journal to the French Physical Society, which in
turn created a company in charge of editing the periodical. At the same time
Journal de Physique merged with Le Radium, founded in 1904, and became the
Journal de Physique et le Radium until 1962.
At the turn of the 20th century many leading scientists, from France and
abroad, started to send their work regularly to Journal de Physique. Several
contributions on radioactivity by Marie Curie, Pierre Curie and Rutherford
can be found in the issues of the year 1906. Langevin and Weiss both published
important contributions to magnetism in Journal de Physique. In 1932, Néel
published his pioneering work on antiferromagnetism, a work that would
much later, in 1970, win him the Nobel prize. During the years 1944–1959, he
published several articles on magnetic domains and magnetism of small
particles in Journal de Physique.
The title “Journal de Physique” actually only appeared in 1963, and at the
same time the journal was run by an editorial board representing several
domains of physics. It was in charge of the evaluation of the manuscripts. The
publication committee of the French Physical Society was created in 1967 with
Jacques Friedel as the first chairman. The duty of the Committee was to
control all publications of the French Physical Society including the Revue de
Physique Appliquée and the new letter journal, Journal de Physique Lettres,
which was launched in 1974. In 1986 this letter section would finally become
Europhysics Letters (EPL) after the merger with Lettere al Nuovo Cimento from
the Societá Italiana di Fisica.
More effective integration of European publications began in 1969 with the
creation of a publication committee by the European Physical Society, giving
its recognition to various national publications. In the first issue of Journal de
Physique recognized by the European Physical Society in 1970, Jacques Friedel
expressed his hope “qu’il conduira à une organisation un peu plus rationnelle
des publications de physique a l’échelle européenne”.
In the sixties English had become the standard language for publications in
Journal de Physique although French abstracts were still encouraged. The
journal was published in two sections, Journal de Physique I and II, devoted to
Condensed Matter and Soft Matter respectively, plus another section
publishing conference proceedings.
Journal de Physique can be proud of having published seminal papers from
leading scientists of the 20th century, in the field of liquid crystals (de Gennes,
Nobel Prize 1991), and on optical pumping by Kastler (Nobel Prize 1966) and
Cohen-Tannoudji (Nobel Prize 1997). Also Friedel published his work on the
electronic structure of transition metal alloys in 1958 and another article with
Blandin in 1959 in the Journal de Physique.
A big step towards the unification of European publications was
accomplished recently with the merger in 1998 between Journal de Physique I
and II and Zeitschrift für Physik B and D, edited by Springer-Verlag, followed
one year later by a secondmerger with Il Nuovo Cimento A and D.
The European Physical Journal (EPJ) was the first Europe-based journal in
history founded in 1999. What remains of the original series of Journal de
Physique is the section Journal de Physique IV devoted to the publication of
conference proceedings.
Let us hope that EPJ and EPL will contribute to the future European
platform for publications in Physics.
D. Jérome
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Journal de Physique Historic Scheme and Digitizing Plans